Ukrainian Drone Maker General Cherry Partners With Wilcox to Build FPV, Interceptor Drones in U.S.

Ukrainian drone manufacturer General Cherry announced a proposed joint venture with New Hampshire-based Wilcox Industries last week, targeting U.S. production of FPV and interceptor drones at Wilcox's Newington facility. The move brings one of the conflict zone's highest-volume drone producers into the American defense supply chain, with implications that extend well beyond the battlefield.

General Cherry claims a production rate exceeding 70,000 drones per month across dozens of platform variants, a scale that dwarfs most Western UAS manufacturers. The company's flagship for the joint venture is the Bullet interceptor, a fixed-wing VTOL system rated at speeds up to 309 km/h, alongside the AIR series of counter-UAS products. Both lines are aimed explicitly at Pentagon customers and U.S. government requirements.

Co-founder Yaroslav Hryshyn framed the partnership in direct terms: "we are pleased to have the unique opportunity to build production together, which will manufacture the newest means of defense and striking." Wilcox CEO James Teetzel described the agreement as a combination of Wilcox's manufacturing infrastructure with General Cherry's combat-tested engineering, oriented toward serving U.S. government demand.

The joint venture is not yet operational. Before a production timeline can be confirmed, the deal requires approval from Ukrainian authorities and additional governmental sign-offs, with registration and launch contingent on that clearance.

For the FPV racing and hobby community, the announcement carries indirect weight. General Cherry's claimed production volumes, if replicated domestically, would represent a significant addition to U.S. small UAS manufacturing capacity. That matters because tactical and racing platforms share a supply chain: motors, ESCs, cameras, and antenna components flow through the same vendors regardless of end use. High-volume domestic production can shift component pricing, tighten lead times, and increase reliability for race-grade hardware that gets pushed hard in competition.

The partnership also sharpens a debate that has been building in the FPV community for years. When manufacturers of tactical strike and interceptor systems establish domestic production at scale, the dual-use nature of FPV technology becomes harder to ignore for regulators. Race organizers and technical leads who have long operated in a relatively permissive regulatory environment should expect that scrutiny to intensify as defense-oriented FPV manufacturing gains a U.S. footprint.

Wilcox brings established Pentagon procurement relationships to the table. General Cherry brings operational data from platforms developed and iterated under live combat conditions, a testing environment no proving ground can replicate. If the joint venture clears its regulatory hurdles, Newington could become a production hub for some of the most technically demanding small UAS designs currently in active deployment.